


To Aperture

by comatoseroses (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 13:57:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1349914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/comatoseroses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years, two months, eleven days and roughly an hour after jumping from a roof to his death, Sherlock Holmes stepped out of a taxi and took a very brief walk through the streets of London. On the whole, this was to be considered a pleasant turn in events. If John Watson hadn't mysteriously vanished into the ether long before he made his return, it might have been much more pleasant. </p>
<p>(Or, Sherlock returns from his hiatus better than ever, and John Watson, unfortunately, did not have the same luck.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Aperture

**Author's Note:**

> Yo yo. This is an angsty, hurt-comfort sort of fic in progress, for a prompt I found eons ago on livejournal (see: http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/19743.html?view=119760415#t119760415). I can't say how frequently it's going to update or how long it's gonna be, but I'm pretty sure actually posting it will give me some impetus! 
> 
> This baby is definitely divergent from S3 as we know it, too, wow. But that's what I get for starting it last year tbh.

The silence is oppressive. 

A truly ridiculous notion, Sherlock knew, even as it flickered through his mind (barely a flicker, barely an anything, a grain of sand in an oyster at the bottom of an ocean of More Important Things; _sub-folder in a sub-folder in a sub-folder_ ). 

Something was inherently oppressive _about_ the silence. (Better. Not at all.) Ridiculous notion again, yes, but one that Sherlock couldn't seem to prevent regardless. Thick air, cold eyes, sharp shadows in the firelight-- a tension, brittle enough that it soaked through his clothing, his skin, reached in past his ribcage to obstruct his breathing. 

"Sherlock." 

It might have been helped by two of those ribs being cracked, if it were more than a product of some fit of unnecessary descriptive language. As though he might save the moment, write it down, give it away to someone later. As though all the wanting in the world would provide him with the one person he'd make a point of giving it to.

Sentiment. Even here, even now, _sentiment_. He'd been destined for ruin the moment they met.

The facts, as could be evidenced, were these:

1.) Three years, two months, eleven days and roughly an hour after jumping from a roof to his death, Sherlock Holmes stepped out of a taxi and took a very brief walk through the streets of London. Just as there were ways of navigating the city without being caught out on surveillance footage, there were certain routes wherein one was never out of sight of a camera. Having been well along the path of the latter, Sherlock was soon approached by a vehicle (sleek, black, very nearly the usual model-- updated, must have taken a fancy to something new to the market). 

2.) Mycroft was not going to continue speaking with him until he re-established eye contact. (Annoying. Only to be compromised because of an urgent need for news.)  
(2a. Regardless of the need for news, he was not going to lend the impression that he was in such a mild state of being as indifference. This was _far_ beyond any indifference.)

3.) One year, six months, two days and roughly thirteen hours after his best friend jumped from a roof to his apparent death, Doctor John Hamish Watson vanished from all detectable channels of surveillance without a trace. Unacceptable. Past every limit of unacceptable even as a solitary standing variable, never mind any plans Sherlock had of returning in the future- if he lived, if he finished his work. 

(the work always comes first, doesn't it, Sherlock? always and forever, and maybe I've just left you to it this way. compassionate, human, prone to temper, thinking you dead: it's purely _logically_ a possible John Watson course of action, yeah? new start, something exciting, something probably dangerous.

_but is it, really. You know better than anyone, John, that you're impossible to predict with full accuracy. I've always disliked that about you._

liar.

a lightning-fast conference in his head, a weak imagining that he didn't pretend granted him any comfort or feasible purpose. Just John, just what his perception of John might have done, algorithms and charts and predictions.)

He'd come to learn an important and repeated lesson in the past three years. A hindrance to nearly all functioning processors existed, and it was always John. Every time, John Watson, clogging gears like a mess of unravelled thread, falling into all the wrong places, coming to mind when he had nothing to do with the situation. 

Sherlock had memorized him in their time living together, line by line: skin cells and grey hairs and blunt fingernails, eating habits, speech patterns, colour scheme, deduced life's history. He'd had blood samples, once, carried a photocopy of the cells to his first plane out of the country. Every individual component could be recreated in his mind with his usual accuracy (complete), but it wasn't enough. No one merely recreated their own John as a whole; no mysterious new blogger grew from thin air when he found himself talking to the space by his side. They never would. His best hope was surviving to take his back again, to reattach the amputated part of his lifestyle before it somehow healed over. Before the removed piece regenerated everything new around itself as time passed.

John might have done that. A constant risk. The death of a friend would be a damaging blow, but men like John Watson (revisit: data couldn't be entirely reliable in anything other than a singular study, men "like John Watson" unconfirmed) did not come to a halt. John moved forward whether or not he cared for it. John healed, John scarred, John lowered his head and marched on pragmatically. John swiftly, impossibly, somehow, slipped between the cracks of the universe and into nothingness when he was meant to be in plain sight.

And Sherlock hadn't been any the wiser.

"You were supposed to watch him." There was nothing to lighten his tone, no leniency lurking in the depths of his voice. Sherlock turned his gaze onto Mycroft as though it cost all the physical strength he could wield. Not entirely inaccurate- anger could be so difficult to properly impart. Venom. Vitriol. Vengeance. He'd become something of a savant in their application to everyday tasks, these past few months (naturally: he took to anything he needed to take to with precision). If it didn't have the full impact from behind a thinner face, the unevenly shorn hair, if it had more than it once _did_ (and he was entirely certain that it had more)-- well, whatever his expression may or may not have let on, Mycroft remained infuriatingly neutral in facing it down. 

"Every system has its strengths and weaknesses, Sherlock. You've spent many an evening making a point of that."

"Hardly something that could fill an entire evening. But I'll concede to that point; as pathetic as your security measures have ever been, I doubt I should be surprised by the evidence of the fact." Deliberate, punching, concrete as the final stroke of a typewriter, and everything he was hoping to get across with his tone. Mycroft bristled, as much as he was capable of doing, and Sherlock allowed for a quick self-satisfied smile in spite of himself.

He was off of thirty-eight months of stimulation, adrenaline highs so pure that he'd not even thought to smoke a low-tar. His affairs were in order, his mind was in unrest in all the best ways- bright, burning bright, systematically destroying the tasks set before it, coming dangerously close to being put out entirely. John could always be trusted in a dangerous situation, but in that... 

Ah. A conductor of light and point of moral standing hadn't much place in the line of work Sherlock had set before himself. Even one who barely counted as such, even one who was broken and content to act otherwise. He'd sooner set John down in his element in Afghanistan, in London, release him to the world like a wild animal and watch him disappear into his surroundings. There were points at which one had to relearn walking alone. 

And oh, what a run he'd had as a result. Incomparable. When he found John, he'd not be apologising for it. 

When. Obviously. 

No room for the distinct possibility of John having started a new, more traditionally fulfilling lifestyle. Being struck, or turned away at the door, after what could entail weeks of effort reviving enough information to begin a search. No room for the highly unlikely possibility that John had removed himself from his life to find a quiet place to end it. One last mystery. (no. from the very core of him, through his circulatory system, the only thought to be spared for that was no.) No room for quick and dirty back-alley murders, bodies in the Thames, the non-discriminatory stilling hand of chance.

Sherlock let Mycroft's frown pass him by without acknowledgement. "I'll have his file before I leave."

"Sherlock-"

"All of it. Haven't got the time to come back and steal it later, haven't got the stomach for another touching reunion. God knows who you're gossiping about me with now." A cheap shot, some might have called it. 

Sherlock never had believed in such things.

As quickly as Mycroft had come to frown, he turned his mouth firmly upward into a smile. Oh, an effortless, collected politician by all pedestrian views, most likely meant to be intimidating. Sharp edges, anger more palpable in the fact that it couldn’t be seen. As though he hadn’t lost Sherlock John twice over now. As though none of this happened to be his fault. 

He made a great show of sending the relevant text, and Sherlock made no show of gratitude. He was owed this much. Doubting it would only give room for Mycroft to weasel an undesirable element into the picture. 

A layout was already forming in his mind’s eye. Potential leads to readdress, what information was likely to be filed away, photographs, surveillance footage to recover- he’d need the full table and bulletin board to organize everything, most likely- an entire wall, possibly. The last tangible steps of John Watson on the planet. How far would it stretch? 

“You’ll remember your residence at Baker Street, I’m sure. We’ve kept it well enough in your absence, if you’re inclined to return once you’ve finished up here.”

“Mm. It’s a possibility.” 

“Do me the favour, little brother, of not pretending that we’re unsure where you’ll end up. It’s rather painfully apparent.”

“Only so long as you don’t expect your surveillance equipment to last the week.”

“We’ll see. You really ought to reconsider wearing the tie. Circumstances considered.”

“If a blue tie is more convincing than the factual evidence I’ve already provided, I’d rather be handed over to a firing squad. It’s a press statement, not a trial.” 

“I would think you know better by now.” 

Sherlock returned to staring into the fire. Held onto the silence for that crucial single second too long to seem convincingly bored in present company. “Yes, well. You know what they say when you assume.”

“Something distasteful, no doubt.” 

“But _very_ well-suited.”

“Five minutes. Don’t respond to any questions. All of the available information on Doctor Watson’s whereabouts will be waiting in your car." Another silence, one just barely long enough. Mycroft could be so painfully _easy_ that way. So pedestrian. "Do try not to get your hopes up, Sherlock.”

Charming.

One would almost think he cared.

Sherlock waved his brother away.


End file.
